Posted by <Xnoubis> on December 26, 2001 @ 04:50 PMfrom the eunuch-and-conqueror dept.

It seems to me that I often see Thelemites treating Crowley's thought as the gold standard of Thelema. New Aeon thought begins by accepting Crowley and moving forward from there. But if there's anything to this Aeon business (or at least, if there's anything to this new direction of humanity that Crowley wrote about), shouldn't we be treating Crowley as an early New Aeon thinker, and be open to the possibility of later thinkers (including ourselves) being able to characterize and respond to the Aeon with greater clarity than did the Old Man?

…has anything really changed that much?
or things are changing so rapidly that the fragmentation reflected in our world; mirrored
in how we think about that….New Age?

what happened to the corresponding relation to that …Old Age?

was Crowley a bridge between these imagined
landmarks of time…old age shifting into new age;
where did the change happen?..when the BOL was
penned?

or say when the bomb droped on Hiroshima?
or say sept11.2001…

is this a sign of the end of the third chapter?

…so with these thoughts held in mind; as the
legacy of Thelema goes through what ever transmutations in each person that becomes
a micro embodiment of some aspect of its
transmission; and experiances his or her own
minnie apocalypse or crossing of an abyss
or chasm; threshold to awakining…and endures
the ordeals; perhaps the events in the world
that somehow parallel that and at the same time
add to the enigma; the mystique of that rose
unfolding as it were…

we at some point either identify with certain
voices in the wilderness that speak loud and clear
to us; or at least whisper utterances that have
a sudden relevance at the moment we are ready
to recieve the higher octave or totaly off the
wall absurdity of its stagering simplicity
next to the seeming overwhelming complexity

ie. the shear volume of information that accompanies a nexus in the matrix that a Crowley
manifested…

so is; as above so below another way of saying
as mirrored in the old so mirrored in the new?

and so i lay my thoughts down; in this the
so and so date of this so vulgar era; as a tenative
exploration of the throughts layed down by
one Xnoubis…

…and toss them to the wind as they burn to
pure ash in my hand; and i let go before they burn
my finger tips…

The tips are tricks played by our lips, we cruse like sylphs sliding through sod, and for our reward we're cast off the cliff – landing rather stiff-ly in God…

Ouch!

As a single point of reference, we are each the sole beginning and end, as Crowley was/is for him “Self” - as a point of reference alone.

We each search for external reflection, regardless of time or date, and AC still serves as a strange and wonderful road marker of His age.

If the Aeon was different in some sensually perceptive or Spiritual way when AC delivered the BOL, and Time or Modes of existence in the Vital Intelligence of Energy changed drastically, I'll never be crystallized at that period myself anyway, but I’m assuming he did fairly well given the environment he created.

All in all it looks as if he was an accomplished combat reporter, along his own front lines, inside and out, and did a good gob demonstrating what potential a person might realize through actions private and industrial to further there own cause, and salvation.

speaking of AC's “gobs”, didn’t he actually dry his juice and sell it to the masses in pill form? I wonder if any “gob” jobs still exist and what they’d be worth on spermBay…\\
\\

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Saturday December 29, @11:37AM
|

He also tried to sell an “elixir” with similar ingredients. It obviously didn't sell that well or he wouldn't have died bankrupt. He is known to have consecrated talismans with his “gobs”, one of which was found in his wallet when he died. I don't know what became of it. Perhaps John Symonds does.\\
\\

I really hate Albert Einstein. Why are his physics such a big deal? He was a real clown.

So I wrote my own book of physics. I never went to college. In point of fact, some would say I don't know much about physics, but didn't Einstein himself say, “everything was relative”?

What I can't understand is why people don't find MY physics more meaningful.

What a wonder it is to me. I think it's because people are limited by their “fundamentalist atttitude” about Einstein! How can they say they even believe “everything is relative” when they won't give MY physics a try?

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Thursday December 27, @02:23PM

Clever sarcasm is always welcome. Too bad you entirely missed the point. X isn't saying anything remotely like “Forget Crowley and pay attention to my wonderful insights”. He's critiquing those idiots who see Crowley as an endpoint rather than a starting point. Physics doesn't stop with Einstein, and Thelema doesn't stop with Crowley. Physicists recognize the former, do most Thelemites recognize the latter?\\
\\

I think most people interested in Thelema think it has a life after AC. The problem is: what does that take to contribute significantly? Is it easy, or hard?\\
\\
Wanting there to be attainment other than AC is different from doing the work needed to attain beyond him.\\
\\
In terms of most Thelemites: How much do they know about other people making big attainments who are Thelemites? I can reel off a list, but I find that most people don't know who these people are, or only know their names.\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Friday December 28, @09:32PM

…i have to say that i believe this to be myth making in the mold of some kind of cultish new age thelemic mold….\\
\\
i myself indulge in this to a degree; where as i realize that i 'am indulging' in that i totaly\\
agree and disagree at the same time;\\
\\
i do not believe that it is possable to “ attain beyond Crowley”…in that the whole of the Thelemic melieu, as it were is a system of various\\
components. that only have a cohesive extention\\
if one adheres to the idea that one actually\\
is progressing in some sort of orderly contained\\
magickal/spiritual advancement up a kind of grid\\
placed on a tree…\\
\\
as deeply imbeded as this sepherothic grid of correspondences are and tend to be; nevertheless\\
at a certain point the whole thing just sort of rolls up like a scroll; and vanishes in a puff\\
of sulfer; cinnimon; dragons blood, and benzion\\
because zat is za way it goes!!\\
\\
and there are those whom adhere “religiously”\\
to the various systems with in the system;\\
and will cry bloody murder, if you deviate\\
from the prescribed initiation relay; as it were\\
like some mental maze and the probationer is like\\
some lab rat the is clued on by tiny bits of cheese placed at certain hightly charged locations;\\
\\
and this is indeed the only way to run an order;\\
as it is a mirror to the social ladders we climb\\
in external society, the institutions that we place at the center of our world; science and religion; military and civilian; elite and poor;\\
good and evil, ect ect.\\
\\
…so there is a myth and a there are folk tales\\
and taboos and stratifications; the serve various agendas; established facades of power and material\\
those whom are part of the conveyer belt to the\\
higher eshalons there of…and there those whom\\
are in service to this and play thier respective rolls in the hierarchy; some are more equal then\\
others ; as it were…\\
\\
so enter one Aliester Crowley; an anomaly of sorts\\
and yet very firmly embeded in the structure; has to be; other wise he would not of have gained so much notoriety; they did not have rock musicians\\
in his day…\\
\\
this man steps out of the dominant grid; through his uncommon intelligence and his singualar ambition; but perhaps, and here in lies the perverbial rub of the genie lamp; i believe he\\
had a superb imagination that allowed him to\\
sort of step beyond the magickal tradition\\
and synthasize certain elements that just\\
crystalized so many different undercurrents\\
and knowledge that what we finally get is\\
a wonderful wild artistic creation that allows\\
all different mental aberations and psycological bents to come together under one thelemic banner\\
and sort of “believe” that it all synchronises\\
and materalizes; in the wonderfull phrase; Do what Thou Wilt Shall be the whole of the law; and all the rest just followed its extrahistorical course…\\
\\
but to imagine that there is any one whom will come along and pick up where Crowley left off\\
is the fly in the wizards ointment…sorry; Crowley\\
was one… in an Age…turn the last page:)\\
\\
all the rest of the “ New Age” is childs play!\\
\\
jcat217 0=\\
\\

How difficult is it to anything you want to?\\
\\
Is it easy to attain and contribute, or is it difficult?\\
\\
Do people in the Occult community wish to escape the demands that attaining to excellence entails, or do they seek to escape from those demands?\\
\\

Isn't it strange, though, to compare Einstein's contributions to physics – which are measurable, and which have shaken the world – with Crowley's contributions to religion, which have only a subjective value and which are known only to a very small group of people? Is the system of Thelema anywhere near as significant as the quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect or as either theory of relativity?\\
\\Crowley seems to be an offbeat minority taste, much the same as (say) R. A. Lafferty in his sphere. As such it seems more significant to deal with Crowley in himself, and not as the founder of a “system” which seems to have no broad appeal and little basis for spreading beyond the tiny sphere of Crowley fans. What is it about this system that makes it so important?\\
\\

I guess the question I would have is, how HARD is it to do what AC did? If it was easy, would this really be an issue? The original question seemed to suggest that AC was seen as some sort of “Gold Standard.”\\
\\
I think there have been some very significant magicians post-AC, but they usually aren't even noticed by people who haven't fully digested the AC material.\\
\\
Let's say someone came along and did all the AC material-work, then proceeded to innovate beyond him. Who would know? Wouldn't the same people who have so many “issues” with AC, have the same - or worse - issues with the people who surpass him?\\
\\

Why would anyone want to do what AC did? Was he an admirable character? I regard him as an intrguing and talented maniac, but not someone I would want to emulate – not that it would even be possible for me to do so, since I am not a maniac.\\
\\

I think the issue that is confusing you is the 'ad hominem' issue, in regarda to AC ( and probably other issues).\\
\\
If he was a maniac, so what? Any number of accomplished people have personal problems or beliefs we don't like. That has little to do with their accomplishments. Critiquing people's characters has little to do with whether or not they are successful in what they do.\\
\\
Look at the Class B instructions AC wrote. If someone went thru and mastered them, does it follow they would be MORE like AC, or less like him and more like themselves?\\
\\
A doctor may be mean to his kids and have crazy ideas about the Holocaust, but if he is the best doctor around, I'd want to go to him, and not someone who had a heart of gold and all the right political views, but couldn't diagnose people well.\\
\\
If I wanted to “out-do” AC and advance beyond him, what is holding me back? My own laziness and unwillingness to work hard at yoga and ceremonial magick, or fussy people who were “AC fundamentalists”?\\
\\
Anyone can advance beyond AC, but they must do work to do that, and it isn't easy work.\\
\\

Implicit in your critique is the idea that Crowley himself actually accomplished, as well as imagined, all the exercises in his Class B instructions. However, his diaries, as well as his life, give no indication that he did. Are we to define ourselves according to the pretenses of our Prophet or according to his revelation? All too often Thelemites' unwillingness to emulate Crowley is ascribed to laziness or incapacity (often by individuals who themselves show plenty of signs of both) rather than their very real moral and/or intellectual difficulties with Crowley's A∴A∴ “system”.\\
\\

I guess the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. I have found the use of the Class B instructions very helpful. If you haven't, then good luck in either finding a system or inventing a system that works better for you.\\
\\
My general feeling is that the creation of any system that provides real illumination isn't an easy process.\\
\\
If you have been disapointed with AC's systems, you can either invent your own, or try to find someone else's.\\
\\
The fact that some people appear to you to be “AC Fundies” shouldn't retard your progress.\\
\\

“I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's…”- Blake\\
\\
“I mistrust all systematizers…”-Crowley\\
\\

Re: Systematizers\\
by <Atensutmose> on Monday December 31, @10:24AM

Fra. THA;M quoted:\\
“I mistrust all systematizers…”-Crowley\\
\\
Can someone provide a source reference for that quote? I find it hard to imagine coming from arch-systematizer Crowley.\\
\\
Nietzsche, on the other hand, wrote:\\
“I mistrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to a system is lack of integrity.” –Twilight of the Idols, aphorism 26\\
\\

Whereas Crowley wrote in his journal in early 1904, “to no great man can it ever be possible to work in any existing system. If he has followers, so much the worse for them.” (Magick, 1994 edition, p. xxxviii)\\
\\

I don't feel that you're addressing my issue, which is that there seems no objective way of saying that Crowley “attained” or was “advanced” in any way that matters. A doctor cures people; Einstein gave us the atom bomb; Crowley wrote a lot of books. Which of these things is not like the other?\\
\\

I guess my sense of AC's “attainments” is that he seemed to produce things that had never been produced before. He wrote books and propounded ideas and a philosophy that seem, to me anyway, to be unique in their interest and scope.\\
\\
There are plenty of other people attempting to found religions, or spread philosophies, and each of us have to choose what we find valuable or not.\\
\\
After I have taken his instructions seriously, I have found my life changed forever. How else am I measure anyone's attainments?\\
\\

“… he seemed to produce things that had never been produced before…“\\
\\
Except for Shelley, Nietzsche, Blake, Rabelais, Frazer, Berkley, Descartes, Mathers, Levi, Kelly, John of Patmos, Buddha, Christ, Plato, generations of alchemists and rosicrucians, generations of kabbalists, generations of gnostic thinkers, thousands of years of myth-makers, and inumerable others. But he did manage to divest them of their original meanings and synthesize them in a system of incredible beauty and simplicity.\\
\\

Arguing this issue seems fruitless. Either you are impressed with AC and want to take his advice, or you aren't and don't want to.\\
\\
In a Marx Brothers' movie, they are looking for something (is it a painting?). One of them suggests that it could be “in the house next door.” There is no house next door. “So let's build the house next door.” They set to work with plans, blueprints, etc.\\
\\
This thread postulates that people are stuck on AC as 'the gold standard' and haven't moved off of him into new realms. Is there a house next door? Or do you have to build one?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Monday December 31, @05:05PM

…perhaps it is all futile to argue\\
anything; when it comes to ones true\\
will…\\
\\
….”I wouldn't be part of any organization, which\\
would have me as a member”…Groucho Marx\\
\\
a great teacher does not look for followers\\
they come to him; not as followers, but as\\
fellow travelers…a follower is searching\\
for himself, and therefore will not find himself\\
until he has exhausted all possibilities…\\
until he finds himself sitting on his own door step…as it were; if the old house is haunted\\
then perhaps it high time to find another abode..\\
\\
to speak with the old authority; is not that same as; being able to say: “Do what whou wilt; shall be the whole of the law” Love is the Law Love Under Will“…and mean it with your whole being,\\
\\
…just as the Tao is not a way that can be spoken,\\
neither can the injunction in those words; that\\
open the doors to a new abode…\\
\\
people ARE stuck…this is no postulate\\
this is what happens to people; they become\\
stuck in layers of conditioning; and in order\\
to unlearn what you have been 'standardized with'\\
there is no right and wrong way for any one person\\
every ones experiance is unique…and therefore valuable…the teachings of Thelema, and or the practices are only a means to a way; there are means and means and lots of ways to work with; if you simply must resort to the 'old authority' to get\\
your point across; then you have already lost the golden thread!\\
\\
i don't give a fig, for your systems within systems; this labyrinth will swallow you whole\\
look at the messages on the wall and perhaps\\
spend a small eternity deciphering them; it\\
is not like learning cosmic equasions; rather\\
it is more like finding something that energizes\\
the traveler; some still moment of flux within\\
the cryptic messages scrawled on the inner\\
panel….when the whole shit house comes down.\\
\\
the book is not a house…it is a home; and its\\
mansions have already been explored…you are\\
invited to enter, so you may refresh, rest\\
and move on…until you open its gold dusted pages\\
once again…perhaps you will recognize the night stars…\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Monday December 31, @07:41PM

“Every man and every woman is a star”\\
“There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”\\
\\
>i don't give a fig, for your systems within systems\\
\\
Nor should you. Nor should anyone care whether or not you do. Anonymous Carper (or whoever) is absolutely right to maintain the value which he has personally found in Class B. I would maintain an identical personal assertion in regards to Class, as I suspect you would also. It's great to see an argument here where I fully agree with both sides \\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Monday December 31, @07:43PM\\

That Class was meant to be “Class A”\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Monday December 31, @09:17PM

..see; i never payed any attention\\
to class smash,\\
\\
and to those whom do\\
all i can say is; bully for you!\\
\\
unless you have something\\
that gives me anything i\\
don't already know;\\
\\
are you saying that; poetic\\
experiance has some lable on it?\\
\\
Class A grade B; i like my book of the law\\
\\
to be just a class act!…B for you A for me\\
\\
how about staight no chaser….in C flat?\\
\\

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by August Daughy on Monday December 31, @10:49PM\\|

How much enthusiasm are you allowed to have for anything (or amyone) to avoid being labeled “a follower”? If you are super enthusiastic about AC, does that make you a “follower” of his? If you attempt to understand him carefully and try the work he outlines, does that make you a “follower”? If you do that work and disagree with him at times, does this make you less a “follower” or more of one?\\
\\
Gershom Legman, in his his book “The Fake Revolt” maintained that being “cool” or adopting a sneering attitude of disdain and muted affect was a sickness of modernity. Is being “enthusisatic” about anything then, the opposite of being “cool”?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Monday January 14, @10:12AM

>How much enthusiasm are you allowed to have for anything (or amyone)\\
>to avoid being labeled “a follower”?\\
\\
Well, of course, to avoid being labelled something you must work it out with the one doing the labelling. It may (often does) have nothing at all to do with any “objective” criteria. The question that occurs to me is “Why is it that being labelled a follower is apparently so distasteful?”\\
\\

To be good at at one thing might mean not being very good at any number of other things.\\
\\
Most people fear Guru-yoga, but seeing how well they do with their other human relationships, is it any wonder than deep commitment and long-term intimate relationships scare them?\\
\\
The physical and mental training it takes to do the sort of yoga AC wrote about is going to be impossible for people who can't control their diets or quit smoking when they want to.\\
\\
When people say they want folks to stop seeing AC as the “gold standard” - what do they really mean? Have they embraced post-AC magicians to any extent? Do they like Spare? Bertiaux? If not, why not? Are they seeking a more personal approach to metaphyics or a more universal one? Are they looking for something that will challenge them more, or challenge them less? Are they looking for something more disturbing to the status quo than AC is, or less disturbing? Something requiring more work, time and sacrifices, or less? Something more “politically incorrect” or something “more correct”? Something that will overthrow their beliefs and prejudices, or something that will ratify them?\\
\\
Are they looking for a medium/prophet that that they will find more pleasing than AC? Someone they can respect more, or respect less?\\
\\
If they don't wish to be followers, or work anyone's system but their own, the door is open and no one is stopping anyone from their creation. It looks easier to bash AC than to out perform him.\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Monday January 14, @12:53PM

Xnoubis started all this by asking “shouldn't we be treating Crowley as an early New Aeon thinker, and be open to the possibility of later thinkers (including ourselves) being able to characterize and respond to the Aeon with greater clarity than did the Old Man?”. I guess it looks easier to interpret this not-at-all anti-Crowley question as a “bash” rather than question any of one's own sacred cows. For instance, whenever someone expresses distaste for the sexism and misogyny that is apparent in some of Crowley's writings they are usually attacked for daring to criticize any word of the Master. Not only is such an attitude quite illogical it is also quite inimical to Crowley's own revelation. I have considerable respect for Crowley, but I'm not a slave to his work, nor do I enjoy having that respect (or my honesty or ability) questioned merely because I dare to think differently than my Prophet on some issues.\\
\\

Looking at someone as the “Gold standard” - and disagreeing with them are two different things. I have found reports of mobs of swirling AC-worshippers to be a greatly exagerated phenomena.\\
\\
If one wants to exceed beyond AC (which is different than registering minor disgreements) one must do a considerable amount of work, imo. Every one has a right to an opinion about Nietzche - for example - but not everyone has done the work on him that Walter Benjamin did. I may be an insane elitist, but WB's take on a difficult passage may have more to offer than that of an American teenager who doesn't even speak German. WB and the teenager each have an opinion, one might be more valuable than the other.\\
\\
Someone may greatly exceed AC on any number of fronts and in any number of areas. He may be so outpaced that his works are seen in an entirely different light than they are now. But what will it take to do that? People giving new magicians a chance (see Spare, Bertiaux, Chumbley, etc.)? Or people dropping their standards and not demanding excellence?\\
\\
John McWhorter said recently, “Diversity is nice, but it cannot be weighted above competence.” All of us must make a choice regarding who and what we find compentant or not when it comes to philosophy, the occult, and yoga and magical practice. But the argument made about seeing AC as the begining and not the end? The people who see him as the begining must take up the work load. It's not simply a matter of changing an attitude. If I want to exceed at anything I must work on it. Is magick different from this rule? Or does magick reinforce it?\\
\\
When one moves away from (or avoids) practical magick (Ceremonial or otherwise) and yoga (raja or otherwise) and into argument and metaphysical speculation, than one can search for anything that is satisfying. But what can one really create in the void of effort? Very little.\\
\\
No one is stopping anyone from approaching the Gnosis of their own take on God (Ishvara), but is that really what we are talking about? There are plenty of post-AC magicians but they distinguish themselves, imo, as being much weirder than he was. “Strange Gods” etc. Is that really what people want? Do they want an individual approach that is very idiosyncratic? I sense a distrust of these approaches from the AC critics. It smacks of an elite of one. Do they want a more universal approach? What would that look like? What would the demands of it be?\\
\\
Someone asked the question about the “house next door.” What would that house look like, assuming it isn't there already?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Monday January 14, @06:57PM

You make some good points here, but your remarks about competence call for some comment. Competence is not always an easily discernible thing. In some areas of course there are evident standards. To write “compentant” for competent does not indicate competence in typing (or perhaps spelling), nor does the use of the phrase “exceed beyond” indicate a great deal of grammatical competence (though neither of them has any bearing upon the reasonableness of your argumentation). However, the more susceptible a field is to the sway of subjective opinion the more difficult it is to agree on acceptable societal standards.\\
\\
>WB and the teenager each have an opinion, one might be more valuable than the other.\\
\\
Quite so, but not always the one you seem to think more valuable. In an academic context WB's take on the difficult passage in Nietzsche is clearly the more authoritative. But if I'm a curious but poorly educated young person in the 'hood, give me the intelligent American teenager's explanation any day. It isn't a question of either “take” being good or bad, it's which is more appropriate to any given situation. I'm not taking the extreme postmodernist position that all opinions are of equal weight; that is patently untrue. And in matters of 'scientific' knowledge very strict standards of judgment are indeed both possible and useful. Crowley hoped to see these standards applied in the investigation of consciousness, and he applied them as best he could during his lifetime, but I doubt that he thought he had done any more than establish a few basic lines of research. I'm sure that he hoped much more would be built upon those foundations. The “house next door” is irrelevant. Crowley doesn't even have his own house yet. The question being posed here is “How adequate are his plans?” as Thelemites go about the building of it. I agree with you that one can't improve upon Crowley by dissing and ignoring him, but I see about as much of that as you see of the “mobs of swirling AC-worshippers”.\\
\\

If AC didn't have his own house, why would we need to see him as someone whose influence we had to escape or “move beyond”?\\
\\
I am still curious as to what the next step in Thelemic thought is going to look like. Since the people complaining the most about this haven't gone in the direction of most of the Magicians trained by or closely following AC, what exactly would “post AC Thelemic” culture look like?\\
\\
The people clamoring for us to stop seeing AC as the “gold standard” have the burden of directing us as to what the next steps away from him will look like. As has been pointed out, they - despite their demands that we accept others making significant contributions beyond him - have failed to provide examples of just what it will look like.\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Tuesday January 15, @12:43PM

Ah yes, the old “you can't criticize unless you can do better” dodge. Sorry, but it just won't wash. One needn't be a hen to know a bad egg. I don't have to be a professor of higher mathematics to know that Crowley can't divide by zero. You apparently think that the “Old Man” is beyond reproach, misogyny? sexism? racism? all minor disagreements in your book. That's fine for you, but don't expect to impress anyone else with it.\\
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I am perfectly happy to hear critiques of AC. I think the idea of seeing what will develop after him is a fascinating and important topic. But I am bewildered as to why no one can produce examples of what this “post AC” thought would look like.\\
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It's not a matter of “don't critique if you can't do better” it's a matter of “what is your suggestion”? Why re-act in a defensive manner? If you have many ideas for a post AC Thelemic culture, why not share them?\\
\\
I know if I posted a topic asking people to look beyond AC, I'd be pointing to the sprouts or seeds growing in the ground. When one asks for a new culture, one DOES assume some of the burdens of creating it - or noticing it.\\
\\
On the other hand, if one had gotten so lazy and weak from sloth, one might just complain that AC was just the begining and demand others more pleasing step up to begin offering themselves to the parasites. Perhaps the new Thelemic culture will only really be here when the next person to come along and assume the burdens of that culture gets picked apart by those too lazy to make any other kind of effort.\\
\\

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Tuesday January 15, @02:15PM
|

It's not a matter of “don't critique if you can't do better” it's a matter of “what is your suggestion”? Why re-act in a defensive manner?\\
\\
I really have to question if this is truly your attitude when you never fail to include aspersions like “On the other hand, if one had gotten so lazy and weak from sloth, one might just complain that AC was just the begining and demand others more pleasing step up to begin offering themselves to the parasites. Perhaps the new Thelemic culture will only really be here when the next person to come along and assume the burdens of that culture gets picked apart by those too lazy to make any other kind of effort.” Why must you project motivations on others? Do you know anything at all about Xnoubis, who started this thread, for instance? I know him personally, and your characterization of “lazy and weak from sloth” doesn't fit at all. I rarely recommend the New Testament, but you really should read up on that “mote and beam” thing. As for how the “new Thelemic culture” should look, I would be quite happy if it looked like people learning and doing their wills instead of enslaving themselves to their idea of Crowley's will.\\
\\

Given that AC said so many things that so many of us find objectionable, wasn't he doing us a favor? If we are too lazy to do the hard work being a Thelemite really requires, and aren't up to the challenges, we can point out the obvious flaws in his character as a way to avoid having to learn to control our bodies (yoga) or our enviornment (ceremonial magick).\\
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What if AC was picture perfect character-wise, and ahead of his time in all the right ways (from every PC perspective), wouldn't our lives be that much more difficult? Rather than blaming things on him and his character flaws, we'd only have ourselves to blame.\\
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As it is, AC forces us to disagree with him and develop our own way of looking at things. But if we fail to exceed, we can always point out his “sexism.”\\
\\
Btw, things like sexism, racism, etc really tend to bug people when they remind them of things inside themselves they don't like. Watch for it. Every time someone complains about racism or sexism or anti-semitism, it is almost always because they themselves suffer from these problems.\\
\\

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Monday January 14, @07:11PM
|

What if AC was picture perfect character-wise, and ahead of his time in all the right ways (from every PC perspective), wouldn't our lives be that much more difficult? Rather than blaming things on him and his character flaws, we'd only have ourselves to blame.\\
\\
Rather like those poor Christians, eh? \\
\\Btw, things like sexism, racism, etc really tend to bug people when they remind them of things inside themselves they don't like. Watch for it. Every time someone complains about racism or sexism or anti-semitism, it is almost always because they themselves suffer from these problems.\\
\\
I learned that the things that bug me in others have their roots inside myself from a very wise woman. She also taught me that this very powerful tool for understanding when applied to oneself was often just a tactic of evasion when turned upon others. How is it relevant to my argument that people who are bugged by other people's laziness and inferiority are probably evading some very real issues about those things in their own lives?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <porphyrite> on Saturday January 05, @01:33AM

I, I, I, vniversum vivus vicci.\\
\\
You maniac, with your you.\\
There were real heros passed. You settle for getting laid, so do I.\\
\\
We won't hear about new heros on CNN.\\
“I” will to crush CNN! Bam, done.\\
\\
The Master Therion (to his friends) was\\
MADBADRADSADLADFADCADHADPADANDWAD! Force of nature for the revolution, which needs keeps continuum continuous. Yanks making money (never more than funny)\\
\\
Anyway Sing! We all live in an n-dimensional world, an n-dimensional world, an n-dimensional world.\\
\\
Hmm Not very catchy. But a warning to cloners.\\
And my guts feel better!\\
Hope some waggering chins hurt, is all.\\
\\

I wonder, has the world view of “Aeonic progression”, where the history of mankind is divided into Aeons been at all considered before Crowley? Or was Crowley the first to give us the notion that Aeons happen and change?

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Friday December 28, @01:53PM

Crowley was by no means the first to take this point of view. Blavatsky certainly promoted the idea of successive “ages” of human history. Joachim of Flora produced a late medieval Christian version, but there are also ancient Greek and Hindu renditions. It's not the idea that's “new”, just this age \\
\\

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by <sidney> on Friday December 28, @09:14PM
|

Crowley was raised in the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect whose notion of “dispensationalism” is probably the immediate intellectual ancestor of Thelemic “Aeonics.”\\
\\

Most definately. The Aeon of Horus has brought such sweet fruits Crowley would never had dared to dream of tasting. It has seen science map the universe from galactic superclusters to subatomic particles; allowed it to look so far into the
past, to the very milliseconds after the inception of the universe. The aeon has seen the end of modernism, the rise of structuralism, post- structuralism, post-modernism, post-industrialism (whew..). The information age allows geographically disparate individuals to communicate via electronic dumping grounds like this. Who knows what Crowley would have done in light of Chaos theory and high speed communication? Its up to us to make the determinations for situation he would never have even conceived of.

Yet the his philosophy, his keen intellect and fine mind, present the solutions to many of the problems plaguing society today.

Having thought long and hard for some time on this very issue, it appears to me that Crowley's work as it is understood by many Thelemites will only ever appeal to those of an already religious persuasion. Having just visited a Moslem country for the first time, it gave me much food for thought regarding the nature of religion and how it influences a group mindset - the people seemed tired of the restrictions placed upon them, but seemed to have no escape route. Were Thelema a religion alone it may have stood a far better chance for sustained growth than it has so far shown - but times have moved on since Crowley's day. The problem is that Thelema can be interpreted in a religious way, but could also apply just as easily to personal psychology or esoteric science - what I mean is this: Thelema is so intensely personal to each Star, that some will always see Crowley as Prophet of a New Religion, while others will regard him and his work as no more than a starting point or signpost. I know many people who would benefit greatly from the core message of Thelema but who would laugh in my face if I presented them with The Book of The Law - an ever growing number of Westerners are just not interested in a religious outlook - IMHO, it is up to Thelemites to effect change in a sociopolitical manner regardless of our own personal relationships with the work of Crowley. To me, he seems like a pioneer scientist who experimented with, but did not perfect, his new system. We are the new breed who take up the baton and run with it. Experiment, create, innovate!

What about the little groups of people who gather together to do the Gnostic Mass and are happy doing that? Isn't this a legitimate religion for them?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Sunday January 06, @07:36PM

…i was a gnostic priest with my priestess\\
many moons ago…and did the mass many times\\
as long as i could under the circumstances…\\
\\
not sure where it would have gone, if it was not\\
for the other surrounding; ah' what shall i call\\
it…politics and religion?\\
\\
anyway, i never thought about it as a; um.. religion; i only thought about it as a vehicle\\
for bringing through the 93 current…as such;\\
\\
a very powerful vessel for my mate and I\\
because it was performed in the swirl\\
of events at the Grand Lodge at the time…\\
\\
…I realy did not have time to think of it\\
as a religion…only as a kind of test of\\
my comitment; a point of entry and departure\\
a forge for tempering my Will and Lust; looking\\
into my priestesses eyes as we conscecrated\\
the elements…feeling the fire and the water\\
the solar current; the starry spiral of energy,\\
acknowledging the gnosis of this….\\
\\
…doing this in the misdt of the changes\\
happening in the world; in the OTO; in my self,\\
and in my life priestess whom i am with still,\\
feeling the surge and rush; channeling it all\\
for the New Aeon….\\
\\
religion is just a word after all; does it really\\
cloak the real experiance?!\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Wednesday January 09, @12:07AM

>not sure where it would have gone, if it was not\\
>for the other surrounding; ah' what shall i call\\
>it…politics and religion?\\
\\
Why not? you two could still do the mass without all the ”…politics and religion“, or is it just not the same without an audience?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Wednesday January 09, @12:08AM

>not sure where it would have gone, if it was not\\
>for the other surrounding; ah' what shall i call\\
>it…politics and religion?\\
\\
Why not? you two could still do the mass without all the ”…politics and religion“, or is it just not the same without an audience?\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Friday January 11, @01:30AM

thanks for the thought, Mordecai;\\
\\
the Gnostic Mass was a very important\\
event in Meryl and my life\\
in many ways…\\
\\
performing it in the Grand Lodge\\
at the time; was well, transformitive\\
\\
and it has always been a part of us\\
like branded into our very psychies\\
\\
i always wonder at what could have been\\
i really think that the Gnostic Church\\
had great potential…has?!\\
\\
the words are powerful anyway; but in a\\
group situation; the energy takes on\\
more profound significance…\\
\\
but then Meryl and I steped into a\\
situation; that had been made charged\\
by Grady MacMurtry…\\
\\
perhaps others have some sort of\\
perspective about that moment\\
in Thelemic history…!\\
\\
perhaps not\\
\\

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Friday January 11, @10:28AM
|

the words are powerful anyway; but in a group situation; the energy takes on more profound significance…\\
\\
Undeniably.\\
\\perhaps others have some sort of perspective about that moment in Thelemic history…!\\
\\
Ah yes, that moment!\\
\\

It appears to me that secular biographies of Crowley are creating more interest in him than his own religious approach ever could. Perhaps like Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, Thelema is doomed as a vehicle due to its aberrational status as ersatzreligion. It will always seem to most like a strange graft of revolutionary ideas onto a traditional religious form with which it does not quite fit. Yet Crowley's work has appeal in itself, outside its religious system, just as Comte's did within philosophy (for a while at least).\\
\\
This is one reason that I focus upon Crowley's work as what it is, the work of a single man worthy of study in itself, and abandon the trappings of ersatzreligion (“Thelema”) that have doomed it within the Western intelligentsia. Viewed as creative work, his oeuvre almost certainly has more staying power than it does viewed as prophecy.\\
\\

93\\
\\
Glad to hear that others feel the same as myself.\\
\\
For me, there is one 'Thelemic' thinker who has influenced my own brain-change experiments even more than Crowley has, namely, Mr. Robert Anton Wilson. His is a name I have never yet seen mentioned on BeastBay, but as far as I am concerned, his wit, cunning and genius makes him the best modern-day exponent of Thelemic thought, without resorting to dogma of any kind. Crowley's message was this and no more: “Wake up kids, it's time you thought for yourselves.” and for me nobody reinforces this message better than RAW. We could all do well to take a leaf out of Mr. Wilson's book when we start asking ourselves how best to spread the message of Thelema.\\
\\
What do other BeastBayers think?\\
\\
93 93/93\\
\\

I gotta tell you, I don't find RAW that advanced anymore. he is interesting to begin with, and is good for many HS aged folks, but after you have read and studied a lot of Occultism and other modern Thelemic writers, he really doesn't do it for me anymore.\\
\\

Wilson's egregious historical errors and dogmatic hatred for the skeptical community, as well as his gullibility and repetitiveness, also put me off him soon after my high-school-aged “Cosmic Trigger” period.\\
\\

I agree. He is perfect for beginners, but after a little while, you start to groan when you hear people begin to refer to him.\\
\\
It's as boring as listening to people's “weird coincident” “23” stories…\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Mordecai> on Friday January 04, @07:04PM

As a “philosopher” I find him no more than an amusing hack journalist. Some of his errors are quite funny, in one book he describes the four humors of ancient medicine as “phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic, and bilious”, omitting the sanguine and multiplying the bile (choler and melancholy are already the two different forms of bile), and when he is confronted with such elementary errors, rather than correcting any new editions he pretends he is doing it on purpose “to see if you're paying attention”. RAW is truly the sage of the bloodless \\
As a novelist is where he probably should have spent his career. Masks of the Illuminati is wonderfully entertaining!\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Saturday January 05, @05:06PM

oh; poo on all you RAW bashers!\\
\\
just disgruntled at your own lack of origionality!\\
\\
besides that i agree with you…FNORD!!\\
\\
“wonderfully entertaining”\\
\\
seems some need to be spoon feed thier caviar\\
occultism…!\\
\\
mine is the “complete occultism of surrealism”\\
\\Crowley passing through the Paris scene in the twenties…was just another dazzleing dark\\
figure in the modern landscape…NOT JUST!!!\\
\\
oh my!…Madam Blablavatsky would be mift!!\\
\\
tisk tisk!…zing zing zing XXX crow crow crow…\\
\\

93\\
\\
Oh dear, it seems I have touched a RAW nerve with you lot. I agree that Mr. Wilson is not always accurate - but was Crowley? Some of RAW's work is indeed dated, but methinks you judge him too harshly - where are your original thoughts?\\
\\
Alright, Cosmic Trigger can grate at times - all that longevity pill & body modification stuff seems a bit silly now, but what about Quantum Psychology, or the Historical Illuminatus Chronicals - I'm no spring chicken and still find them worth a look.\\
\\
If RAW is not to your tastes them who else is there on the Thelemic scene doing anything more than apeing a lon-dead master? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.\\
\\
93 93/93\\
\\

I guess you need to do some research. Most of the really good, post AC Thelemic writers are somewhat obscure. Charles Stein has written a number of books and some of them are available on abebooks.com and other places. Happy Hunting!\\
\\

Re: Horus Sense\\
by <jcat> on Tuesday January 08, @01:01AM

…juz tring to find the cracks between the words\\
that noboby else will say…\\
\\
that's the only way i might begin to understand\\
the birth of my own star…bloody mess and\\
ocean smell….\\
\\
otherwise its sure difficult to tell the occult\\
black forest for the white trees…\\
\\
seeds of silence growing in the darkness\\
before the new dawn…\\
\\
93/333/93…jcat217\\
\\

My thanks, acknowledgement and respect go out to Xnoubis for addressing this.

To focus on what stands in exclusion of what may yet be erected is the sole cause of true human wastefulness. With hearts and minds so caught up in so many dusty traps of attention, it's little wonder that we walk with evolution at a snail's pace. How much hate, conflict, and dogmatic ignorance would be obliterated if more people would turn their eyes to the coming dawn and away from the fading memories of yesterday's dusk?

IMO, the comprehension and embrace of this principle en masse will mark the start of the new aeon.

You've all my support on this one X. Thanks again.

|Re: Horus Sense\\
by <Omenraine> on Monday January 07, @09:48PM
|

Sentience is here, right now. The only expansion that can occur is within this very sentience, be it mine or yours. The mind of Crowley will not elaborate or theorize any longer. So unless we all plan to let understanding sit idle for the rest of our lives then we shouldn't let our focus linger too long on what stands in exclusion of that which we may yet erect.\\
\\

Why argue with a prophet?
The answer is contained in the BotL itself!
The one that solves the riddle/s therein
is worthy of praise!

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